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From: dgary@ecsvax.UUCP (D Gary Grady)
Newsgroups: net.math
Subject: Re: a piece of folk-lore
Message-ID: <491@ecsvax.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 26-Sep-85 10:39:00 EDT
Article-I.D.: ecsvax.491
Posted: Thu Sep 26 10:39:00 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 29-Sep-85 04:15:34 EDT
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Organization: Duke U Comp Ctr
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In reference to the story about the bird and the bicyclists, allegedly
solved by the brilliant mathematician not by seeing the trick but by
summing up an infinite series in his head...

I heard this as a John von Neumann story in a film biography of von
Neumann.  Allegedly it happened at the Institute for Advanced Study and
my recollection is that it was told by another inmate of that
institution, which lends some credibility to it.

Another tale in the same film (told by a witness, I think) had it that
someone had been cranking through the terms of a fairly complicated
sequence using a mechanical calculator.  He had stayed up all night and
had gotten through about 5 or 6 terms.  Von Neumann came in the next
morning and asked what was up.  The other guy told him.  Von Neumann
said something about that being interesting, stared off into space, and
started outputting terms at intervals of about a minute.  The other guy
said nothing, but when von Neumann got up to term 8 or so he got up and
went home...
-- 
D Gary Grady
Duke U Comp Center, Durham, NC  27706
(919) 684-3695
USENET:  {seismo,decvax,ihnp4,akgua,etc.}!mcnc!ecsvax!dgary


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